Laugh Your Way to Persuasive Communication

If you can tell a joke well, you already possess many of the skills you need
to write a persuasive marketing plan, sales letter, financial report, new
product proposal, etc. Equally, you already possess many of the skills you need
to prepare persuasive speeches and other types of oral presentations.

Really? Just think about it. A well-constructed joke perfectly fulfills two
critical criteria of persuasive communication: clarity and conciseness.

To better understand this, we first need to determine the true meanings of
“clarity” and “conciseness”. This can best be done by giving them objective
definitions, almost like a mathematical formula.

Clarity

To achieve clarity - i.e. to ensure that virtually everyone will understand
what you are saying - you must do three things.

1. Emphasize what is of key importance.

2. De-emphasize what is of secondary importance.

3. Eliminate what is of no importance.

In symbols: CL = EDE

To apply the formula, whenever you write you must first decide what really is
of key importance, i.e. what are the fundamental ideas you want your audience to
take away from your text or discourse?

This is not always easy to do. It is far simpler to say that everything is of
key importance, so you put in everything you have. But there is a dictum that
warns: If everything is important, then nothing is. In other words, unless you
first do the work of defining what you really want your audience to know, they
won't do it for you. They will simply get lost in your words and either give up
or come out the other end not knowing what it is you were trying to say.

What about the second element of the formula, de-emphasize what is of
secondary importance? You don't want key information and ideas to get lost in
details. If you clearly emphasize what is of key importance, then whatever is
left over is automatically de-emphasized.

Finally, you need to eliminate what is of no importance. Why? Because just as
you don’t want your key ideas to get lost in details, you certainly don’t want
them to get lost in elements that have no business being there in the first
place.

Conciseness

To achieve conciseness, your text or discourse must be as:

1. Long as necessary

2. Short as possible

In symbols: CO = LS

If you have fulfilled the criteria of "clarity" correctly, you already
understand "as long as necessary". It means covering all the ideas of key
importance you have identified, and all the ideas of secondary importance needed
to support and/or elaborate these key ideas.

Note that nothing is said here about the number of words, because it is
irrelevant. If it takes 500 words to be "as long as necessary", then 500 words
must be used. If it takes 1500 words, then this is all right too. The important
point is that you actually say everything that really needs to be said.

Then what is meant by "as short as possible"? Once again, this has nothing do
to with the number of words. It is useless to say at the beginning, "I must not
use more than 300 words on this subject", because 500 words may be the minimum
necessary.

"As short as possible" means staying as close as you can to the minimum. But
not because people prefer short texts and presentations; in the abstract the
terms "long" and "short" have no meaning. The important point is, all words
beyond the minimum tend to reduce clarity.

We should not be rigid about this. If being "as long as necessary" can be
done in 500 words and you use 520, this is probably a question of individual
style. It does no harm. However, if you use 650 words, it is almost certain that
the message will not be completely clear - and your audience will become bored,
confused, or lost.

In sum, conciseness means saying what needs to be said in the minimum number
of words.

So how does all of this relate to jokes? If a text or oral presentation fails
in its purpose, you often don’t know it until a long time later. Feedback is not
instantaneous. If you fail with a joke, you know it immediately.

To see how this works in practice, here are two versions of the same joke.
Version 1 shows what it would look like by ignoring the formulas for clarity and
conciseness; Version 2 shows what it would look like with the formulas properly
applied.

But a word of warning. Version 1 may become rather tedious, so if you are
inclined to fall asleep while reading it, jump directly to Version 2.

Version 1

Arthur is taking a trip from Dublin to New York. He gets on the plane at
Dublin Airport and straps himself into his seat. The plane takes off. About an
hour later, the intercom clicks on. A voice is heard saying:

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. The weather across the
Atlantic is clear and calm. But I have to report to you that there has been a
malfunction in our number 1 engine and for safety reasons I will have to shut it
down. However, let me assure you that there is nothing to worry about. This is a
superbly designed, superbly engineered aircraft and we can easily fly on three
engines. But I will need to reduce our air speed and I estimate that we will be
about a 30 minutes late arriving in New York.”

After about another hour’s flying time, the sound of the intercom is heard
again. Once again, it is the captain.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. The weather across the
Atlantic is still clear and calm. However, I must report to you a malfunction in
our number 2 engine and for safety reasons I will have to shut it down. But once
again let me assure you that there is nothing to worry about. This is a superbly
designed, superbly engineered aircraft and we can easily fly on two engines. But
once again I will have to reduce our air speed and I estimate that we will be
about one-and-a-hours late arriving in New York.”

About an hour later, it happens again. The intercom clicks on and a voice is
heard.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. The weather across the
Atlantic remains clear and calm. However, I must report to that we now also have
a malfunction in our number 3 engine and for safety reasons I will have to shut
it down. But again let me assure you that there is nothing to worry about. This
is a superbly designed, superbly engineered aircraft and we can easily fly on
one engine. But once again I will have to reduce our air speed and I now
estimate that we will now be about three hours late arriving in New York.”

At this point, Arthur lets out a groan. “Good grief, I hope the captain
doesn’t have to shut down that fourth engine. Otherwise, we could be up here all
night!”

Version 2

A plane takes off from Dublin heading to New York. After about an hour, the
intercom clicks on and a voice is heard.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I have to report that
due to a malfunction we have lost the use of our number 1 engine. But let me
assure you that there is nothing to worry about. This is a superbly designed,
superbly engineered aircraft. We can easily fly on three engines. However, I
will have to reduce speed and I estimate we will be about 30 minutes late
arriving in New York.”

A bit later the intercom again clicks on.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I have to report that
we have also lost use of our number 2 engine. But once again, let me assure you
that there is nothing to worry about. This is a superbly designed, superbly
engineered aircraft and we can easily fly on two engines. However, I will once
again have to reduce speed and I now estimate that we will be about
one-and-a-half hours late arriving in New York.”

Another bit more times goes by. Once again the intercom clicks on.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I have to report that
we have now lost use of our number 3 engine. But once again, let me assure you
that there is nothing to worry about. This is a superbly designed, superbly
engineered aircraft and we can easily fly on one engine. However, I will again
have to reduce speed and I estimate that we will now be about three hours late
arriving in New York.”

At this point, Arthur lets out a groan. “Good grief, I hope we don’t lose
that fourth engine. Otherwise, we could be up here all night!”

Version 1 contains 406 words, while Version 2 contains only 298. And I think
you will agree that the second version is much funnier. Why? Because it fully
respects the formulas for clarity and conciseness, as all good jokes do.

Here are two more well-constructed stories. They are not jokes of the “ha-ha”
variety, but I am certain they will put a smile on your face.

All about Penguins

A little girl goes into a library and asks the librarian, “Do you have any
books about penguins?” The librarian goes to the shelves and gives her four or
five books, which she sits down to read. A few minutes later, she comes up to
the librarian’s desk and returns them. “What’s the matter, honey?” the librarian
asks. “Don’t you like these books about penguins?” “Oh no,” the little girl
replies. “They’re great books! They’re wonderful books. But . . . well, they
just tell me much more about penguins than I really want to know.”

Why Does It Rain?

A little girl (not the same one) asks, “Daddy, why does it rain?” Her father
takes her on his knee and explains: “Well, it rains to give water so the grass
can grow. And it rains to give water so the flowers can grow. And it rains to
give water so the shrubs can grow. And it rains to give water so the trees can
grow. Now do you understand why it rains?” “Oh yes, Daddy,” she replies. “But .
. . why does it rain on the sidewalk?”

Philip Yaffe is a former reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal
and a marketing communication consultant. He currently teaches a course in good
writing and good speaking in Brussels, Belgium. His recently published book In
the “I” of the Storm: the Simple Secrets of Writing & Speaking (Almost) like a
Professional is available from Story Publishers in Ghent, Belgium (storypublishers.be)
and Amazon (amazon.com).